Friday Flashback

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Tonight I want to share this post from 2011.  It is rather timely as I have noticed that one of the consistently highest categories of our spending is ‘house and garden’.  There is always something that needs doing.

This morning I went to Maleny.  I had several things to do and they all cost money.  I began to think about this and realised that we would have none of these expenses if we lived in the city.  Mind you there would be other costs, and wild horses would not drag me back to suburbia.

I picked up our 4 new point of lay pullets, otherwise known as the new chickens.  Here they are.

2011-12-12 01Then I paid for the repairs to the ride-on mower.

2011-12-12 02The Duke had managed to break a link in the steering when he last used it.  We have sloping land which is scattered with volcanic rocks (boulders, actually) which are mostly submerged and other obstacles such as large tree roots.  We need this mower as there is a lot of grass to keep mowed.  Here is part of the backyard.

2011-12-12 03I took Psycho Dog to the vet as I had found another 2 paralysis ticks on him this morning.  He had one a couple of months ago which made him quite sick but luckily this time he is not too bad.  It will still cost me quite a bit for the antidote.

I have bought a new tick collar (due for one) today, also.

My final purchase for the day will be online.  I am going to buy a set of dog clippers so that I can keep his coat really short as that is the only feasible way to be able to find the ticks. The cost of the set of clippers is less than one dose of tick antidote so a cost-effective purchase.  Previously, a friend would clip him about every 4-5 months but because of the extreme tick season this year he needs clipping about every 3 weeks.  She is no longer doing it so I have decided to do the clipping myself.  He is a border collie with a thick, double-coat which makes it almost impossible to locate the ticks.  We live in a tick-prone area but the ticks are particularly bad this year.  Perhaps it is because of the wet summer we had last year?

This is what Psycho Dog looks like when he is clipped.  I think he is quite handsome.

2011-12-12 04

Finding the Freezer

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Well, it wasn’t the actual freezer – more like the contents!.

Today I was working from home and late this afternoon I went looking for a chicken casserole in the freezer to have for dinner.  I do not keep an absolute inventory of the contents of the freezer but generally have a pretty fair idea of what is in there.  I could not even remember what type of container the casserole was in but I eventually found it.

While I was looking for the casserole I found a few odds and ends that needed to be used up and the drawers needed cleaning  as well.

Here are the contents of the top drawer.

001The drawer was washed and ready to repack.

002Organised and ready to replace.

005The bottom drawer finished as well.

006This was the freezer section of my main refrigerator in the kitchen.  We also have a small bar-sized freezer downstairs.  There are are few food items but it is mostly frozen water which we stored during the storm season.  This could be thawed and used and the remaining food transferred to the freezer in the kitchen.  I will do that on the weekend and then defrost the small freezer.

This is what I have in the freezers at the moment.

Salmon – 6 serves
Chicken – 4 serves
Diced beef – 4 serves
Mince – 2 serves
Sausages – 8 serves
Bacon – 6 rashers
Frozen peas – 1.5 packets
Home-made bread – 6 slices
Tomato pulp – 500ml
Honey/soy sauce – 100ml
Broccoli stalk – 1
Zucchini slice – 2 serves
Cherry tomatoes – 2kg
Chopped basil and tomatoes – 2 ice-cube trays
Ground coffee – 500g
Mango puree – 1.2 litres
Guava puree – 1.5 litres
Berry juice – 800ml
Pumpkin soup – 5 serves
Celery soup – 2 serves
Crushed bunya nuts – 2 kg
Ice – 10 litre

When I re-read the list it is evident that my freezer contents are mostly meat and storage of some of the things we grow – cherry tomatoes, basil, mangoes, guavas, bunya nuts and pumpkins.  Sometimes I have more prepared meals.

How do you keep track of what is in the freezer?  What sorts of things do you store.

Death and Destruction

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No, it was not Nepal, Fiji or any of the other natural disasters that have happened all around the globe.  This was in our own little corner of south-east Queensland.

For a couple of hours last Friday a small area, including where I live was hit by torrential rain and significant flooding.  5 people lost their lives as they tried to drive through flooded roads.  Cars were washed away, people were stranded and public transport was disrupted.  Our road was almost impassable in places due to driveways that had washed away leaving large rocks and piles of gravel on the road.

2015-05-05 01A retaining wall collapsed and at least one residence was inundated with mud and water that cascaded down the mountain with unprecedented speed and force.  The lake which forms in our backyard formed and reached capacity within 2 hours whereas it usually takes a couple of days of steady rain to fill.  The force of the water moved large concrete blocks several metres and washed our recycle bin from its regular position.

The next morning was perfect – blue sky and not a breath of wind.  So strange.

2012-08-05 01

Tracking 2015 – April

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Over the weekend I finalised the figures for our April spending.

BudgetingHere are the totals so far:

January – $2,628.73
February – $1,783.49
March – $4,320.56
April – $2,384.46

Now that I have 4 months of spending recorded I decided to extrapolate that to a 12 month period and came up with $33,351.72 which is rather high considering that is only our variable expenses and does not include the mortgage, rates, insurances etc.  I then took out the holiday costs and redid my calculations which presented a more realistic figure of $24,832.32 for the year.  Finally, I excluded our public transport costs and our variable spending dropped to $18,340.32 when averaged over the year.  The reason I tried excluding the public transport costs is that these are entirely associated with going to work and would not be relevant in a post-retirement budget.

This is certainly proving to be an interesting exercise to see where the money actually goes.

Sunday Shopping

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No sewing of the stash this week despite the best of intentions.  Today was mostly about shopping which was a little different to our usual weekly shop which consists of going to a local fruit and vegetable stall and a few groceries from Aldi.  We went a bit further afield – to Caloundra because I wanted to buy some more salmon.  It is about 50km round trip so we generally try to make the most of it when we drive that far.

We collected our thoughts and made a list which looked like this:

Farmers’ Markets – fruit and vegetables
KMart – relacement gas canister for Soda Stream, coathangers and long-handled dustpan/brush
Fishmonger – salmon
Discount chemist – tablets and deodorant

After checking the pantry I decided that there was nothing we needed this week from Aldi so we set out on our expedition.

The fruit and vegetables were successfully bought then we headed to KMart.  This was not quite as good.  The gas canister was swapped with far less fuss than last time we wanted one.  You can read about that event here.  However, they did not have the type of coathangers that I wanted nor any long-handled dustpan and brush.  In fact, the selection of household items was very ordinary and there were numerous empty shelves – I am not sure what the reason was.

Off to the fish shop for 4 pieces of salmon which makes 8 serves cost just under $40.  While this is not spectacularly cheap it is a meal that we really enjoy and is better than paying $30 – $35 for a meal of salmon at a restaurant.

There is a Bunnings hardware across the road from the chemist so we tried for the dustpan and coathangers there.  We struck gold with the dustpan but not the coathangers.

Here is the dustpan.  It is the third one I have had in almost 35 years.

2015-05-03 01I bought it to replace this one which has now cracked near the base of the handle.

2015-05-03 02Finally, at the chemist I bought 2 bottles of calcium tablets because they were on special and I made sure they would be used by the expiry date.  I won’t need to buy any more for about 20 months!  GMan could not find the particular deodorant that he uses so we will look elsewhere.

2015-05-03 03I will keep looking for type of coathangers that I want as well as the deodorant.  There is a Big W and Target in Brisbane near my office so I will try to check them out during the week.

Speaking of shopping and spending money, I have tallied up our spending for the first 4 months of the year.  I will have all of the details for you tomorrow.

Flashback Friday

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I found this post today to send the link to someone who was interested.  I really think it deserves to be one of the top posts of all time on my blog.

What do you spread on your sandwiches?  Butter, margarine, something else or nothing at all?

I used to buy margarine without giving it a great deal of thought, however, about 18 years ago I changed to spreadable butter that I make myself.  My reasons are several:

  • Eliminate non-recyclable waste (margarine containers)
  • Health benefits (margarine is simply a chemical cocktail)
  • Easier to spread than pure butter
  • Know exactly what the ingredients are

2012-07-15 01This is the recipe.

SPREADABLE BUTTER

500g butter
250ml oil
150ml water
3 tablespoons skim milk powder

2012-07-15 02Allow the butter to soften but not melt.  Beat butter using a mixer or food processor.  Combine the other ingredients in a jug and stir well to dissolve the milk powder.  Gradually add the mixture to the butter while continuing to beat.  Beat for another 1 – 2 minutes until white and creamy.  Spoon into containers and refrigerate.  This made almost 1500ml so it is really quite economical.  Actual costings would depend on the type of oil that you use.

2012-07-15 03I generally keep one container in the refrigerator and freeze the rest because we do not use a lot of butter and it will go mouldy/rancid if stored for long periods in the refrigerator.  I use Pyrex glass containers as they can be put in the freezer and I am constantly trying to minimise the amount of plastic that I use for storing food.

2012-07-15 04This mixture can be used instead of butter in cooking and baking.  The only exception I make is pastry as I prefer to use ‘real’ butter for that.

The type of oil you use is entirely up to you.  I choose to use locally grown and produced organic olive oil which I buy in bulk at the Co-op in Maleny.  Olive oil does have a distinctive flavour so you may prefer something more bland such as rice-bran oil.  I do not consider canola oil as an option as most of the commercial crop is genetically-modified and I prefer not to use foods that contain GM products.

This is not a totally zero-waste exercise but it is certainly better than all of the margarine containers that you would otherwise use.  I take my glass bottle to be refilled with oil.  The butter wrapper is used to grease baking trays or line cake tins and then goes into the compost.  I buy skim milk powder from Aldi in a 1 kg non-recyclable bag, however, I have recently discovered that I can buy this in bulk from Simply Good so will be doing that in the future.

Doing the Doona

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Do you feel like you’ve just stepped out of the boxing ring by the time you have finished putting the doona/duvet back in its cover?  I don’t know that I would be that dramatic but it is certainly not one of my favourite tasks.

I was recently looking at something on YouTube when I saw a video on how to insert a doona into a cover and then promptly forgot about it.  Since then I have changed the cover to the darker one which I use during the cooler months.  However, I kept the lightweight, polyester insert as the nights were still relatively warm.  I used my usual method which I can do by myself but is easier with the assistance of GMan.

The overnight temperatures have now signalled that it really is autumn so today I decided to change over to the feather doona.  I remembered to take some time to search YouTube for the trick to easily putting the doona in a cover.  There are several to choose from but I thought that the instructions in the following video were as clear as any.

After watching it twice, I decided to test the idea.  The first problem was when I discovered that the doona was nearly 30cm wider than the cover.  I have had this doona for many years and never noticed that before so I just persevered.

Perhaps it is just because I am not overly tall and we have a foot end on the bed, but I found that I walked from one side of the bed to the other numerous times as I was rolling it up.  I had excess doona sticking out from both ends due to the doona being wider than the cover.  I followed the directions and it worked well.  The excess just seemed to disappear into the midst of the doona.

The end result looks much the same as any other method and I am not sure that there was a great deal of difference in the time it took.

2015-04-30 01

The only real advantage that I can see is that my method does entail lifting your hand well above your head in order to shake the doona into place.  If you have shoulder problems the YouTube method would eliminate that.  I do not think it is worth the effort of turning the cover inside-out and laying it out absolutely flat with the corners of the doona matching.

Will I do it again?  Probably not.

How do you get your doona into the cover?  Would you consider trying the method shown in the video?

Wordless Wednesday

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Not quite wordless and not my words or photo but worth sharing.  Photo is courtesy of Amnesty International and the words are from a Facebook post of a friend.

2015-04-29 01“It has been a terribly sad time recently, with the Bali executions, the deaths of the migrants in the sea off Italy, the massive death toll in Nepal, the death of young Freddy Gray in Baltimore whilst in the custody of the Baltimore police, etc, etc. I have prayed for them all.

I have also taken time today to think of the families, friends, neighbours of the 35 innocent men, women and children who were massacred on 28th/29th April in 1996 in Tasmania, by Martin Bryant who will end his days in prison, as he should.

Life is too short. Live it well. Humankind should be both: human and kind.”

Between Bags

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I have never been a fan of handbags because I simply cannot see the point of having several items that perform the same function.  Mind you, shoes are a different story entirely!

The main reason that multiple handbags are not appealing is the fact that things need to be constantly moved from one to the other and the chances of not having the item you need are substantially increased.

You may remember that I recently bought a bag for work that would hold the laptop as well as anything else I need to take to work.  Here it is with the everyday contents.

2015-04-27 01This has worked well and I have not even used my regular handbag since buying this one.  If I am going grocery shopping I just grab my phone and purse and toss them into the tote bag I use for groceries.

This all changed last week when I went to a funeral and neither my work bag nor a shopping tote were appropriate.  I retrieved my black handbag from the shelf in the wardrobe.  The only items in it were a mini tape measure and a pen.

2015-04-27 02I added my purse, phone (and charger) and keys and I was ready to go.

2015-04-27 03I realised that everything else was really only applicable to work so it made swapping bags relatively simple.